Does the Bible encourage redemptive violence?

American theologian Walter Wink calls redemptive violence “a religion unto itself.” Here’s why the violence in the Bible is neither a model for our behavior nor a guide to our values.

In his essay “The Myth of Redemptive Violence, Walter Wink writes, “If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience unto death. This myth of “redemptive violence“ is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.”

Some people do indeed think that violence, alone, can save them. And of course, in my own faith tradition, it is God, in the person of Jesus Christ, who saves. Violence is not the God of Christianity (nor of Judaism), so obviously a religion that upholds violence as god is contradictory to those faiths.

Nonetheless, the Bible, the sacred text of Christianity, is full of violent imagery. It is a book that many people, for better or worse, use for life guidance. We are entitled to ask how it can be said that the Bible—especially when it depicts God committing acts of violence—is not sanctioning violence? It’s a question that has caused a lot of people to throw away the Good Book, or remove large swaths of it (notably throwing away the entire Christian Old Testament). It’s hard for people, especially those who have developed a conviction of nonviolence (based in the Bible itself), to even read violent passages in the Bible at all without thinking that it contradicts their values.

Over the summer, I am taking my congregation through the Old Testament passages in the lectionary. We addressed a familiar passage recently, the story of David and Goliath. At its heart, the story is the opposite of a redemptive violence tale. David doesn’t use Saul’s armor or weapons for his victory, but the power of God. My point is, David does end up killing Goliath. He does so with only a slingshot and some stones, but he does kill Goliath. 

Does the scriptural narrative praise the violence of David? No. Narratively, it is David’s reliance on God that is praised. God uses David, a child, to defeat a figure of evil. Similarly, God uses Israel, a small nation with a small economy and small military, to demonstrate God’s power. Israel’s military success, documented most clearly in the book of Joshua, is a demonstration of God’s supremacy, not a nation’s military might. 

That is the central theme of the Bible for me. God is worthy to be worshiped and every episode of apparently glorified violence is one that declares God’s supremacy, worth, and salvation.

The Bible—at least the violent portions in Joshua and the rest of the Deuteronomist history—aren’t offering us a life ethic, but rather a theology of the supremacy of God. Even when Israel falls into violent disarray in Judges, it is because of the people’s lack of faith and fidelity. That framework I hope can offer us a narrative understanding of violence in the Bible—one that glorifies God’s power.

When Israel wages violence on its own, without God’s permission and without God’s power, when it leans on its own power, it is doomed. God judges Israel for using violence to protect itself and not relying on God. 

The eschatological vision of the Bible is one where swords will be turned to plowshares, where love and peace are known, where violence is no more. When we are all reliant on the power and presence of God to order our lives, instead of the ways of the world, we begin to create a society without violence. The meta-narrative of the Bible leads us to a place of peace and nonviolence. My reading is that the Bible doesn’t glorify violence; it rebukes it.

The call to us as Christians is to lean not on our power, but on God’s. Arming ourselves and thinking that our own violence can save the world is idolatry against the one true God.